The Agencies of God’s Word and Spirit: Modern Science as a “Sacred Reminder”
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Guiding Insights from Two Modern Physicists
“Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? … Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?”22
3. Generalizing the Agencies of God’s Word and Spirit
4. The Agency of God the Father in the New Testament
“But when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirt of his Son into our hearts, crying ‘Abba! Father!’”(Gal. 4:4–6)
- Within the world of finite forms and discrete events, both empirical and spiritual, the members of the divine Triad are described in terms of their vestigial agencies.
- The vestigial agency of God’s Word is expressed:
- ○
- Extensively (universally, continuously) in the laws and principles that govern the form of the created order and inform its evolution. We were reminded of this point by one of the ideas of our two physicists, John Archibald Wheeler and Stephen Hawking, but we have generalized it to include the agency of the Word at each of the empirical and spiritual levels of the created order.
- ○
- Intensively (episodically) in informative revelations, theophanic forms, assumption of a human form in Jesus, the disfiguration of the incarnate form on the Cross, and the image or template according to which humans are transformed. This point was one aspect of our second generalization of the ideas of physicists Wheeler and Hawking.
- The vestigial agency of God’s Spirit is expressed:
- ○
- Extensively in the actualization of the possibilities implicit in the laws that govern the created order, not only at the level of physics, but at each of its various levels, thereby effecting the evolutionary transformation of creatures from one level of organization and functioning to another.
- ○
- Intensively (episodically) in actualizing informative revelations, opening the spiritual realm to prophets and apostles, the conception/animation and anointing of Jesus, revivifying the incarnate form of the Word, and actualizing the transformation of believers into the image of the risen Christ. This was the complementary aspect of our second generalization of the ideas of physicists Wheeler and Hawking.
- There is synergy and coordination between the vestigial agencies of Word and Spirit, both extensive and intensive.
- The extensive, continual agencies of Word and Spirit in the created order provide the infrastructure for their more intensive, episodic agencies in revelation and transformation. An analogy to the coordinated parts of a musical composition was helpful here.
- On the empirical plane, manifestations of the vestigial agencies of the triune God are generally accorded to God’s Word and Spirit. The agency of God the Father occurs in the celestial background and is most often seen by prophets in the commissioning and sending of his Word and Spirit (also in the resurrection of Jesus). This point was our third generalization of the scientific ideas of Wheeler and Hawking.
5. Irenaeus in His Second-Century Context
- A hierarchy of as many as thirty divine and semi-divine entities (the plērōma or pantheon), each having a different grade of stability and knowledge, thereby mediating between the ultimate, immutable reality and the ephemeral, material world;
- Denigration of the material world, in general, and the human body, in particular;
- A Christology in which the deity of Jesus required that he not experience the messier aspects of human life like natural birth and death.
6. Irenaeus on the Extensive Agencies of God’s Word and Spirit
“…we do always learn that there is so great a God, and that it is he who by himself has established and made and adorned and contains all things [per semetipsum constituit et fecit et adornavit et continet omnia] and among all things both ourselves and this our world…. And this is he of whom the Scripture says, And God formed man [plasmavit Deus hominem], taking clay of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life [flatum vitae; cf. Gen. 2:781] …. For God did not stand in need of these [angels] in order to accomplish what he himself had determined within himself [apud se] …as if he did not possess his own hands [suas manus]. For with him were always present the Word and Wisdom, the Son and Spirit, by whom and in whom …he made all things, and to whom also he speaks, saying, Let us make man after our image and likeness [Gen. 1:26a] …”.(AH IV.20.1; SC 100:624–6; ANF 1:487–8 adapted)
“But man he [God] fashioned with his own hands, taking of the purest and finest of earth, mingling his own power [breath]94 with the earth in a measured manner [cf. Gen. 2:7ab]. He gave man’s frame the outline of his own form [i.e., that of the anthropic Word; cf. Phil. 2:6], so that its visible appearance should be godlike [lit. ‘deiform’]—for it was as a [material] image of God that man was fashioned and set on earth [Gen. 1:27]. And in order that he might come to life, he breathed into his face the breath of life [and man became a living being, Gen. 2:7bc]. So, man became like God in inspiration [by the Spirit] as well as in frame [modeled after the form of God’s Word]”.(Dem. 1195)
7. Irenaeus on the Intensive Agencies of God’s Word and Spirit
“Now God shall be glorified in his handiwork [in suo plasmate, the human body104], conforming it and modeling it after his Son [conforme illud et consequens suo puero adaptans]. For by the hands of the Father, that is, by the Son and the Holy Spirit, man, and not [merely] a part of man, was [originally] made in the likeness of God [secundum similitudinem Dei, Gen. 1:26a]…. for the perfect [spiritual105] man consists in the commingling and the union of the soul [adunitio animae], receiving the Spirit of the Father [assumentis Spiritum Patris], and the admixture of that fleshly being which was molded after the Image of God [plasmata secundum imaginem Dei, Gen. 1:26a; cf. 2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15] …”.(AH V.6.1; SC 153:72; ANF 1:531b adapted)
“… man, a created and organized being, is rendered ‘after the image and likeness’ of the uncreated God [Gen. 1:26a]—the Father planning everything well and giving his commands, the Son carrying these into execution and performing the work of creating, and the Spirit nourishing and increasing it”.(AH IV.38.3; SC 294–96; ANF 1:521–22)
“Thus, the Spirit demonstrates [or ‘manifests’] the Word, and, because of this, the prophets announced the Son of God, while the Word articulates113 the Spirit, and therefore it is he [the Word made flesh] himself who interprets [or ‘gives their message to’] the prophets and brings humans to the Father”.(SVSP trans., 43 adapted, with note d; cf. ACW 16:51)
“For the Creator of the world [mundi factor] is truly the Word of God. And this is our Lord, who in the last times was made man [homo factus est], existing in this world [that he created; cf. John 1:10, 14a], and who in an invisible manner [secundum invisibilitatem] contains all things created [continent quae facta omnia; cf. Col. 1:16a] and universally pervades [in universa conditione influxus], since the Word of God governs and arranges all things [gubernans et disposens omnia].116 And therefore, he came to his own [John 1:11a] in an invisible manner [invisibiliter117], and was made flesh [caro factum est, John 1:14a], and was ‘hung upon the tree’ [Acts 5:30; 10:39b; Gal. 3:13b], so that he might sum up all things in himself [universa in semetipsum recapituletur, Eph. 1:10]”.(AH V.18.3; SC 153:244; ANF 1:546–7 adapted)
“And because he is himself the Word of God Almighty, who in the invisible [preincarnate] form pervades us universally in the whole world [cf. Wis. 7:24] and encompasses both its length and breadth and height and depth [cf. Eph. 3:18]—for by God’s Word everything is disposed and administered—[so] the Son of God was also crucified in these [four dimensions] imprinted on the universe in the form of a cross. For, in becoming visible, he had necessarily to bring to light his cross-sharing with the universe, in order to show openly through his visible form [on the Cross] that [cosmic] activity of his: that it is he who illumines the height (that is, what is in heaven), and holds the deep, and stretches forth and extends the length from east to west, navigating also the northern parts and the breadth of the south, and calling in all the dispersed [people] from all sides to the knowledge of the Father”.(Dem. 34; ACW 16:69–70 with 172n.172 and italics added; cf. SVSP, trans., 62)
“… the Holy Spirit came upon Mary, and the power of the Most High overshadowed her [Luke 1:35a]. Therefore, what was generated is holy [quod generatum est sanctum est] and the Son of the Most High God, the Father of all [Luke 1:35b], who effected the incarnation of this being [the Son] and showed forth a new [kind of] generation [novam ostendit generationem]”.(AH V.1.3; SC 153:24–26; ANF 1:527b adapted)
“… as at the beginning of our formation [ab initio plasmationis nostrae] in Adam [Gen. 2:7a], that breath of life from God [a Deo adspiratio vitae], having been united to what had been fashioned [unita plasmati], animated [or ‘endowed with soul,’ animavit] the man and manifested him as being endowed with reason [rationabile ostendit]; so also, in the last times, the Word of the Father and the Spirit of God, being united with the ancient substance of Adam’s formation [adunitus antiquae substantiae plasmationis Adae; cf. Gen. 2:7], rendered man living and perfected [viventem et perfectum effecit hominem], receptive of the perfect Father [capientem perfectum Patrem] …”.(AH V.1.3; SC 153:26; ANF 1:527b adapted)
“For never at any time did Adam escape the hands of God [the Word and Spirit] to whom the Father said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness [Gen. 1:26a]. And for this reason, in the last times, his hands perfected a living man [vivum perfecerunt hominem, i.e., Jesus] ‘not by the will of the flesh, nor by the will of man, but by the good pleasure of the Father’ [John 1:13], in order that Adam [the human species] might be made [once again] after the image and likeness of God”.(AH V.1.3; SC 153:26–28; ANF 1:527b adapted)
“For this gift of God [Dei munus, i.e., the Spirit130], has been entrusted to the Church, as breath [aspiratio] was to the first created man [Gen. 2:7], so that all members receiving it may be vivified [vivificentur]. And [the means of] communion with Christ [communicatio Christi] has been distributed in it, that is, the Holy Spirit, [which is] the earnest of incorruption [arrha incorruptelae; cf. 2 Cor. 5:5; Eph.1:14], the confirmation of our faith [confirmatio fidei],131 and the ladder of ascent to God [scala ascensionis ad Deum]. ‘For in the Church,’ it is said, ‘God has set apostles, prophets, teachers’ [1 Cor. 12:28], and all the other means through means through which the Spirit works …”.(AH III.24.1; SC 211:472; ANF 1:458b adapted)
8. Summarizing and Assessing Irenaeus’s Theology of Word and Spirit
The creation and development of the natural world: the Spirit’s adorning all things and fructifying vegetation, complementing the Word’s forming all things.The bodily creation of humanity: the Spirit’s animation of virgin earth, complementing its bodily formation with the anthropic Word as its prototype.The elevation of humanity to the spiritual likeness of God, complementing its formation in the divine image.Divine revelations with the elevation of human minds and imaginations to perceive the forms and hear words of the divine Word.The Incarnation: conception, anointing, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus.The restoration in the divine likeness in humanity: spiritual rebirth and union with God with Christ as the prototypical Image.The Church, its spiritual gifts, the Eucharist, and its future hope.
9. Conclusions
Funding
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
1 | The ontological status of the Word and Spirit is not clearly addressed in the Hebrew Bible. Are they hypostatized attributes or angelic beings? In either case, the descriptor, “divine”, serves to distinguish them from human words and spirits. Our primary concern here will be with the economic Trinity rather than the “immanent” Godhead that transcends all space and time. |
2 | I am using the term “agencies” to describe what traditional theology has called the “operations” (Greek, energeia) or “powers” (dynameis) of the deity e.g., Philo, Cherubim 27; Special Laws 1.45–47. On the proper use of this etic term, in discussing Irenaeus’s understanding of Word and Spirit, see Lashier (2014, 176, 179, 181), passim. Lashier identifies a “two-agent theology of creation” (ibid. 177, 180), that supports the findings of the analysis of Irenaeus’s writings here below. |
3 | In keeping with modern systems theory, I assume a multi-level model of the created order. I use the term “world” to indicate the created order in all its levels, spiritual as well as material. I shall use the terms “cosmos”, “realm”, and “plane”, with various modifiers (physical, spacetime, material, empirical, mundane, spiritual, heavenly, celestial, angelic), as a way of differentiating those levels. I have previously reviewed two helpful ways of constructing such a stratified model in Kaiser (2013, 11–25). |
4 | Walhout (1970, 201–8). Walhout was then a professor at Rockford College (now Rockford University) in the state of Illinois. He proposed that other religions can be “sacred reminders” in the sense that they can function as “reminders of the truth or potentiality one affirms in one’s own religion” but do not receive so much attention (ibid., 202). |
5 | On the role of beliefs in modern scientific endeavors in relation to creational theology, see Kaiser (2007, 130–45). |
6 | |
7 | |
8 | One alternative understanding of vestigia trinitatis is based on Augustine’s psychological analogy to human memory, intellect, and will (summarized in his On the Trinity XV.3.5). |
9 | To be clear, I do not equate the teachings of Scripture with theories of modern-day scientists. I view the relationship rather as an analogy of proportionality (A is to B as C is to D): the ideas of modern-day scientists can be seen in relation to the modern worldview of what the teachings of Scripture were to their own view of the created order. This analogy will be exemplified in our discussion of the various levels of the created order in Irenaeus’s writings. |
10 | The traditional idea of vestigia Trinitatis, literally “footprints” or “traces” of the Trinity, are more accurately termed “vestigial agencies” in the context of present-day English (where vestiges are traces of something that is disappearing or no longer exists). They are operations of the Deity that are most often accorded to God’s Word and Spirit in Scripture, but operations carried out in the world of finite forms and discrete events; e.g., Isa. 55:11; Pss. 33:6; 147:15, 18; Wis. 9:1–2; Sir. 42:15; 43:26; 48:3; Heb. 1:3. In traditional Latin theology, the external operations of the Trinity are said to be shared by all three members (opera ad extra indivisa sunt), yet “the distinction and order of the persons are preserved” (servato discrimine et ordine personarum). Typically, the mandate of creation is attributed to God the Father; lordship and redemption to the Son; communion and sanctification to the Spirit; see Blocher (1997, 120–22). |
11 | |
12 | Hawking (1988, 175) (concluding words). Hawking was perhaps echoing Albert Einstein, who had stated that the laws of nature revealed “a superior mind” half a century earlier; Einstein (1935, 28, 131). |
13 | The association of the laws that govern creation with the Word (or command or covenant) of God is implicit in Pss. 119:89–91 (Hebrew, devarka); 148:8 (Hebrew, osah divaro) and Jer. 33:25 (berit), and it is made explicit in Second Temple texts like Sir. 16:26–28 (Greek, to hrēma autou); 39:31 (lógos), and 1 Enoch 5:2–3; 18:15; 41:5–7, 69:16–21; 72:35–36 (Ethiopic, tezāz); 79:1–2 (sherāt); 80:4–7 (sherāt and tezāz); on the meaning of the Ethiopic terms, see Orlov (2022, 307nn.207, 208). This association of the divine word and law was firmly established in Christian theology by Basil of Caesarea, Hexameron IX.2. |
14 | I speak here of “members” of the Trinity in order to not become entangled in the problematic idea of individual “persons”, another term that was introduced by Tertullian in response to modalism (Against Praxeas); Kaiser (2001, 75–77). |
15 | The Word’s cosmic agency is analogous to the way the Word is manifest in the Torah (Law) that governs and informs the lives of God’s children. In rabbinic texts, the study of the laws received on Mount Sinai is called halakhah (plural halakhot), which derives from the verb halakh, meaning “to go”. So, halakhot are meant to direct human behavior (Exod. 18:20) as much as the laws of nature direct the processes of the physical world as in Ps. 19:1–9 (knowledge, words, course, circuit, law, decrees, precepts, commandment, ordinances of the Lord); Ps. 147:16–20 (his word governing weather, his statutes and ordinances); cf. Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus (hereafter Autol.) II.15 (disposition of the stars, laws and commandments of God). An analogy between the Torah and the cosmic agency of the Word is also found in classic rabbinic writings, where Torah/Wisdom is seen as the blueprint for the created order (Mishnah Avot 3:14; Genesis Rabbah 1:1). |
16 | From the perspective of modern science, information about a system must include, not only its observed form, but the program that governs its formation and evolution. Hence, the agency of the Word is more expansive than the traditional Platonic world of ideas that give permanent form to material things, e.g., Philo of Alexandria’s notion of divine powers or ideas that delimit, order, and define material objects (Special Laws I.46–48) and are themselves embedded in the divine Logos (Creation 20). |
17 | According to many physicists, mathematical laws like those of quantum theory govern the origin of our universe as well as its subsequent evolution. If so, they transcend space and time much like cosmic decrees of God in Scripture. |
18 | One could go back as far as Aristotle’s assignment of a “separate intelligence” to each of the cosmic spheres. Each of these intelligences conceived an idea or law of perfect motion that governed its assigned (albeit animate) sphere. So, the separate intelligences functioned something like the laws of motion, principles, and geometries of modern physics, and they all emerged from the one single Unmoved Mover. Another unitary scheme was found in Philo of Alexandria’s Mind of the universe, which is the divine Word (Philo, Creation 8, 20, 69). |
19 | |
20 | John Archibald Wheeler in “The Creation of the Universe” at 1 h, 18–19 min of the program. The “life” that Wheeler attributed to the universe is not the same as energy in the physical sense. It is what actualizes the equations that govern all physical matter and energy. |
21 | William Whewell made a similar distinction from a theistic perspective in his Bridgewater Treatise (the first): “Hence we infer that the intelligence by which the law is ordained, [and] the power by which it is put into action, must be present at all times and in all places where the effects of the law occur”, Whewell (1834, 361–62); cf. Kaiser (1997, 366–69). Whewell’s “intelligence” and “power” correspond to the agencies of God’s Word and Spirit as described below. |
22 | Hawking (1988, 174). On Hawking and the actualization of the laws of theoretical physics, cf. Kaiser (2007, 28–29). Kitty Ferguson quoted this passage and took the idea as the title of her book, Ferguson (1995, 84). Michael Heller refers to this issue in philosophical cosmology as the “ontological gap” between nonexistence and existence, in contrast to the “epistemological gap” that grants intelligibility to the universe; Heller, “Chaos, Probability, and the Comprehensibility of the World”, in Heller (1995, 121). Heller states that, from a theological perspective, “the ontological gap and the epistemological one coincide”. The theological rationale for this coincidence, according to our findings here, is the coordination of the agencies of the Spirit (actualized existence) and the Word (intelligibility). |
23 | This actualizing agency is not the same as physical energy, the latter being interchangeable with rest mass and all such mass energy having been generated by the laws of quantum theory and relativity. Here, we are concerned with the actualization of those laws. |
24 | The dialectic of transformative, sometimes chaotic novelty (“spirit”), on one hand, and limiting, harnessing order (“word”), on the other hand, is a common theme in the Old Testament wisdom literature; e.g., Job 38:8–11; Ps. 148:6–8; Prov. 8:29; Pr. Man. 3. In the New Testament, the Lord Jesus is portrayed as the channel for the outpouring of the transformative Spirit of the Church (John 20:22; Acts 2:38). For an ecclesial parallel to this dialectic in the New Testament, see Paul’s treatment of the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Cor. 14:2–6, 13–19. |
25 | When speaking of laws that govern the cosmos, physicists generally assume a “nomological realist” view of those laws, rather than the descriptive, non-causal view taken by most of today’s philosophers of science. According to such nomological realists, what we term “laws of nature” are progressive approximations to the phenomena at hand, depending on the current state of experimental technology and degree of computing power. |
26 | The Greek terms penuma (spirit) and pnoē (breath) are closely related in the LXX (Septuagint) of biblical texts like Job 32:8; 33:4 and Isa. 42:5. For the purposes of this essay, we assume their rough equivalence. |
27 | Divine light is another of the biblical images for the agency that forms and informs the created order, including humanity; cf. Pss. 36:9/10; 43:3; John 1:4, 9; 2 Cor. 4:6. In fact, the Word (Aramaic Memra) of the Lord is equated with primordial light in Targum Neofiti to Exod. 12:42; McNamara (1972, 103). |
28 | The Masoretic Hebrew text of Gen. 1:1 is best translated as “When God began to create heaven and earth—the earth being unformed and void …” (Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, (Berlin and Bretler 1999)). It is described as if we were in a theatre waiting for the play to begin, and when the curtain rises, God is already at work on the primordial elements of earth, darkness, and water. In modern cosmology the primordial elements would be different, and the creative process would include the origin of those elements. |
29 | The exact phrase, “and God said” (vayyomer elohim) occurs only nine times in Gen. 1:3–29. However, a total of ten such words (ma’amarot) is asserted in Mishna Avot 5:1 (early third century) in order to match the number of commandments or words (devarim) of the “ten words” in Exod. 34:28; Deut. 4:13; 10:4. |
30 | The early rabbinic Sages saw a parallel to the ten creational decrees in God’s delivery of the ten commandments at Mount Sinai. Each commandment (davar, word), issuing from the mouth of God, was activated by a blast of spirit/wind (ruah, from God’s treasury of winds) so that the people of Israel could hear it distinctly and even see it; Babylonian Talmud Shabbat 88b (cf. Exod. 20:18a = 20:15a in Hebrew), as translated in Wollenberg (2023, 182–85). |
31 | In keeping with the usage of modern science, I shall use the simple term “cosmos” to designate the physical, spacetime level of the created order, which includes everything that is perceptible to the senses or with the aid of technologies. Our “cosmos” is comparable to the sensible world (kosmos aisthētos) of Platonic philosophy), but not the Platonic “world of ideas” (ho ek tōn ideōn kosmos). |
32 | E.g., Theophilus, Autol. II.13; Irenaeus, Against Heresies (hereafter AH) IV.32.1 (which aligns Gen. 1:3 with John 1:3); cf. Steenberg (2008, 70–71 with n.24). |
33 | Old Testament and Second Temple texts detail the agency of the Spirit empowering the prophets (Num. 11:25–26; 1 Sam. 10:6, 10–11; Mic. 3:8; Isa. 42:1–7; 61:1–3; Hos. 9:7b) and the Messiah (Isa. 11:2; Psalms of Solomon 17:37). In keeping with modern systems theory, I understand this empowering as the actualization of a higher, more complex level of functioning rather than power in the physical or biological sense (as in the empowerment of Samson in Judg. 14:6, 19; 15:14). |
34 | Similar combinations occur in 2 Sam. 23:1–2 (the Spirit anoints David and inspires him to speak God’s words and rule justly); Isa. 11:1–4 (the Spirit inspires Jesse’s descendant to judge and establish a just order); 42:1–4 (the Spirit identifies God’s servant and enables him to establish a just order); Isa. 61:1 = Luke 4:18 (the Spirit inspires words of restoration); Luke 1:35 (the Spirit enables the conception and holy birth of Jesus, followed by his designation as “the Son of God”); John 14:26 (the Spirit inspires the Apostles to “remember” the words of Jesus). |
35 | Our primary concern here is with the “economic” Trinity rather than the “immanent” Trinity. The latter inheres within the divine being that transcends all finite forms and discrete events and for which the contingencies involved in creation and cosmic evolution are not directly applicable. This distinction was already made by early Apologists, who distinguished the Logos prophorikos (the spoken Word active in creation) from the Logos endiathetos (the eternal Word immanent within the Godhead); cf. the note below on Theophilus of Antioch and Kaiser (2007, 43). To avoid confusion, I refer to the former as the “vestigial agency” of the Word. |
36 | Given the multi-level world model assumed here, humans are embedded in the agencies of the Word and Spirit at the physical, chemical, biochemical, biological, social–psychological, and spiritual (even celestial) levels. Even though biological, social–psychological, and spiritual creatures are not ubiquitous, they constitute classes of beings. So, the agencies of the Word and Spirit are extensive at each level in the sense that they are distributive throughout the corresponding class of beings. In other words, the extensive vestigial agencies of Word and Spirit consistently apply to all members of those classes, but are not omnipresent or ubiquitous at all levels. |
37 | My distinction between “intensive” vestiges (effective at particular times and specific places) and “extensive” ones (affecting all of creation) is adapted from the thermodynamic distinction between intensive variables like temperature and extensive quantities like heat. Biblical texts make a similar distinction regarding the agency of divine Wisdom (Sir. 24:3–12; Bar. 3:24–37) and regarding Christ (Col. 1:15–20: Heb. 1:3–4; cf. Luke 2:9b, 11). In patristic texts, this differentiation was codified in the idea of the threefold presence of the divine Word: eternally present with God the Father, extensively and permanently present in all of creation, and intensively present in the Lord Jesus Christ as well as in biblical theophanies (Origen, On First Principles I.2.8; IV.4.3; Against Celsus IV.5; VII.17; Athanasius, On the Incarnation 14.8, 17.5). The latter two modes of presence are the vestigial agencies of the eternal Word, pertaining to the economic Trinity, that concern us here. |
38 | As noted above, present-day scientific endeavor is based on beliefs inherited from the historic creationist tradition, three of which are intelligibility, unity, and relative autonomy of the natural world. These beliefs relate to the extensive agencies of God’s Word and Spirit. Since the nineteenth century, the focus of the ecumenical Church’s discourse has largely shifted to the Incarnation, Atonement, ecclesiology, and sacraments, all of which relate to the intensive agencies of Word and Spirit. |
39 | The background reference to the revelation of YHWH/Adonai in a finite, anthropic (humanlike) form is explicitly stated in biblical texts like Num. 12:8 (temunah, apparently contradicting Deut. 4:12, 15–18); Jer. 1:9 (yoshlah YHWH et-yado); Ezek. 1:26b (demut …adam); 1:28b (demut kavod YHWH, both contradicting Isa. 40:18); Hos. 12:10/11 (edameh); cf. Gen. 32:30–31 LXX (eidos theou); Phil. 2:6 (morphē theou). An anthropic form modeled on that of YHWH/Adonai was also assigned to the divine Word in Wis. 18:15–16; Rev. 19:11–16; cf. Pss. 9:8; 96:13; 98:9; Isa. 11:4; 63:1–3; 64:1–2, 7a; Lam. 1:15; 1 Enoch 9:4). The variety of revelatory forms of the Deity was highlighted in the third/fourth-century midrash, Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishma’el, Shirata 4; Bahodesh 5: at the Red Sea, the Lord was “a man of war”, young enough to engage in battle (Exod. 15:3–4), but on Mount Sinai, he appeared as “an old man full of mercy”; Lauterbach (1961, 2:31, 231). For an overview of the homology between the anthropic form assumed by the deity and the human (male) body, see Altmann (1963, 213–22, Reprinted 1969, 19–28). |
40 | The Word’s assumption of a finite form is a reflexive instance of its intensive formative agency, hence, an autoformation. As with all formations governed by the Word, the Spirit is the agent of actualization; see below on the Irenaeus’s treatment of the Incarnation in AH V.16.2. I refer to these finite forms of the Deity as “anthropic” rather than “anthropoid”. The latter term is equally valid, but in scientific discourse it refers to a class of primates that includes monkeys and apes as well as humans. |
41 | In most cases, Scripture writers used the Tetragrammaton (YHWH/Adonai) rather than God (Elohim) as the divine name when describing concrete manifestations and the worldly actions of the Deity; e.g., Exod. 19:11; 33:11; Num. 12:5, 8; Deut. 31:15; 2 Sam. 22:10–18 (=Ps. 8:9–17); 1 Kgs. 19:11; 22:19; Isa. 6:1–5; Ezek. 1:26–28; 43:4–7; Amos 7:7; Zech. 9:14; 14:3–4; Mal. 3:1b. John’s correlation of Logos theology with Kyrios traditions was facilitated by the fact that both were associated with the governance of world affairs in first-century sources like Philo, Cherubim 27. According to Richard A. Horsley, this association was also assumed the Apostle Paul, for whom the extensive agency of the “one Lord” in 1 Cor. 8:6b (di’ ou ta panta) was based on the Middle Platonic identification of the Word as the instrument through which God made all things; Horsley (1978, 134). |
42 | Elliot Wolfson describes the intermediate realm of spiritual forms as an “imaginal world” (mundus imaginalis) and explains that it “is not the imaginary world of subjective fantasy or psychotic hallucination, but is instead a realm where invisible realities become visible and [where] corporeal entities are spiritualized”; Wolfson (1994, 61–62). |
43 | The Spirit’s agency in opening the realm of spiritual forms to Old Testament prophets and sages is indicated in texts like Num. 24:2–4 (Balaam); Job 32:8 (Elihu); Jer. 1:9; Ezek. 1:3b; 2:2; 8:1–4; 37:1, 4; 43:5–6; Joel 2:28–29; 4 Ezra 14:22; Philo, Planting 24–26 (Moses); idem, Life of Moses 2.291; Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities 28:6–7, 10 (Kenaz); 1 Pet. 1:11–12 (the Old Testament prophets); cf. Wis. 7:27; 10:21 on the illuminating agency of divine Wisdom (associated with the Spirit in 7:7b, 22b). Some biblical narratives portray visionary theophanies as occurring in a quasi-material way (e.g., Gen. 15:17; Amos 9:1), but I attribute this fact to the absence of the later apocalyptic distinction between visionary–spiritual and visible–empirical worlds, together with the tendency of dramatic narrative forms to flatten out the multileveled complexity of prophetic phenomena. Esther J. Hamori makes a helpful distinction between “concrete anthropomorphisms” and “envisioned anthropomorphisms” (two of her five categories) in biblical texts; Hamori (2008, ch. 2). Note, however, Hamori includes the concretely crafted theophany in Amos 9:1 (“I saw the Lord standing on/beside the altar”) in the “envisioned anthropomorphism”, rather than the “concrete anthropomorphisms”, category (p. 29). |
44 | The role of God’s ruah/pneuma (spirit, breath) in actualizing anthropic forms (including those of the Word made flesh) is indicated in texts like Ezek. 1:4–5 (living creatures, cherubim); Rev. 1:10–16 (a Christophany); cf. Matt. 1:18–21 (virginal conception of Jesus); Luke 1:34–35 (virginal conception of the Son of God). Only in rare cases is the Spirit accorded a voice like that of the Lord (Acts 21:11; cf. Ezek. 2:4) or even a finite form like that of angels (possibly Acts 8:26, 29); cf. Martyrdom of Isaiah 9:27–36 on the “angel of the Holy Spirit”; Origen, On First Principles IV.3.14 on the two seraphim of Isa. 6:2 representing the Word and Spirit; Aphrahat, Demonstration VI.15 on the Holy Spirit standing before God like an attending angel). All four Gospels describe visions of the Spirit descending like a dove upon Jesus at his baptism (Matt. 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:33; John 1:32), and the two of these versions indicate that the Spirit alighted on him (Matthew) and remained on him (John), recalling the imagery of the dove that Noah released, finding a resting place after the Great Flood (Gen 8:9–12); compare this with Rabbi Ben Zoma’s interpretation of Gen. 1:2c in Genesis Rabbah 2:4. However, only the Lukan version of the baptismal narrative states that it descended “in bodily form like a dove” (Luke 3:22a), and none of the Gospel accounts say that the Sprit was seen in the form of a dove, or that it was heard to speak the declarative words from heaven (Matt. 3:17; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22b; John 1:32). |
45 | On visions and auditions of the apostles and prophets, see Matt. 10:20; John 3:3–6; Acts 7:55–56; 1 Cor. 2:9–13; 12:3–11; 14:29–32; Gal. 4:6; Acts 2:17–21; Rev. 1:10–13; 4:2; 21:10; Odes of Solomon 36:1–3. In 1 Cor. 12:6, Paul stated that spiritual gifts were inspired by God (the Father). In the following verses (12:7–11), however, he repeatedly stated that the Spirit was the agency through which God bestowed those gifts. It should be kept in mind that visons and auditions (theophanic forms and words) often occurred together in biblical times; see e.g., 1 Sam. 3:1; 1 Kgs 22:19–22; Isa. 6:1–13; Amos 9:1. |
46 | The idea of synergy between agencies of the Word/Christ and Spirit is indicated in texts like Rom. 1:3–4; 1 Cor. 12:3–5; 1 Tim. 3:16; and (arguably) 2 Cor. 3:16–18 (“The Lord is the Spirit”). |
47 | The word “image” (Hebrew selem; Greek eikon, Latin imago) has various meanings. The two that we encounter in this project are: (1) the visible form of something that would otherwise be formless and invisible, as in the cases of God’s Son, the Lord Jesus, in relation to God the Father (Col. 1:15; cf. 1:3, 10) and Philo’s Word/Son of God in relation to the invisible, ineffable Deity (e.g., Confusion 62–63, 97, 146); and (2) the reflection or reproduction of a pre-existing, prototypical form, an exemplar, as in the case of Adam in relation to God and Seth in relation to Adam (Gen. 1:26–27; 5:3). The latter is in effect an image (sense 2) of an image (sense 1). It is common in rabbinic Judaism and has been termed “corporeal isomorphism” by Idel (2013, 113). |
48 | The reference to God as “Power” in Mark 14:62 (Greek dymanis for the Hebrew gevurah) is unique in canonical Scripture, but it later occurs in the talmudic and midrashic literature; see Idel (1988, 157–9). |
49 | The Lord Jesus was also envisioned as enthroned in New Testament texts like Matt. 19:28; 25:31 (on the Son of man); and John 12:41; Rev. 1:10–14a (with echoes of the enthroned deity in Isa. 6:1–3; Ezek. 1:26, 28; Dan. 7:9). When the risen Christ is described alongside God the Father, however, the throne is ascribed either to the Father or to both together (Rev. 7:15–17; 22:3). |
50 | The relative amorphousness and repose of God the Father in the New Testament suggests that the formative/informative agency of the Word could not apply to God the Father, of which supposition is consistent with the patristic idea of the “monarchy” of the Father (Athanasius, To the Antiochenes 5–6; Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 42.15). |
51 | The detailed description of the Lamb, compared with that of the “one seated on the throne”, in Rev. 4 reflects the greater accessibility and mediating role of the former. In the background are similar biblical throne–room scenes in which the enthroned one is less visible and more exalted than more accessible figures like seraphim and cherubim (Isa. 6:1–7; Ezek. 1:22–26; 1 Enoch 14:8–23 [Book of Watchers]; cf. Martyrdom of Isaiah 9:37–10:6; Testament of Levi 3:4–8, 2 Enoch 22:1–4; Babylonian Talmud Hagigah 12b–13a). One exception to this generalization is Dan. 7:9–10, where the enthroned “Ancient of Days” is described in some detail. In the Book of Revelation, however, these attributes were accorded to the risen Christ (Rev. 1:13–14). |
52 | The Gospels clearly identify the Son of man with Christ, the Son/Word of God (Mark 14:21, 41; John 3:13, 14; passim), and Revelation equates the Lion–Lamb with Jesus, the crucified and risen one (Rev. 3:1; 5:6, 9; cf. John 1:29, 36). |
53 | Similar ambiguity occurs in the Gospel of John. On one hand, Jesus states that the Father draws believers to Jesus; on the other, no one besides Jesus has seen the Father directly (John. 6:44–46; cf. 1:18; 14:8–9). |
54 | Jesus was raised by God the Father according to Acts 2:24, 32; 3:15, 26a; 4:10; 5:30; 10:40; 13:30; 17:31b; Rom. 4:24; 6:4b; 10:9b; 1 Cor. 6:14a; 2 Cor. 4:14; Gal. 1:1; Eph. 1:20; Phil. 2:9; Col. 2:12c; 1 Thess. 1:10b; Heb. 11:19; 13:20; 1 Pet. 1:21. Two of these passages also assign the future resurrection to God: 1 Cor. 6:14b; 2 Cor. 4:14 (“with Jesus”). However, the focus is on the relation of God to his unique Son. |
55 | On the postmortem agency of Jesus (and the renewed agency of his disciples), see Acts 3:26b (“he sent him to you first”); 10:40–42 (“and he commanded us to preach”); 13:30–31 (“and he appeared to those who came up with him”); 17:31a (he appointed him to judge the world); Rom. 4:24–25 (“for our justification”); 1 Thess. 1:10c (“he delivers us from the wrath to come”); John 10:16 (“And I have other sheep … I must bring them also”). |
56 | The major exception to God’s direct agency in the Resurrection is the Gospel of John, where Jesus repeatedly states that he will raise himself after his crucifixion, John 2:19; 10:17, 18 (in obedience to a command from his Father), and will raise his followers (John 5:21b; 6:39–54). Perhaps this postmortem self-formation or re-formation was the climax of the signs that John’s Gospel intended to trace (John 2:11; 4:54; passim; cf. Matt. 12:39–40). Nonetheless, the patricentric rule that we find in Acts and Paul (see above) might still be reflected in the glorification language of John 13:32; 17:1, 5. |
57 | The fact that Paul consistently attributed the Resurrection to God the Father may also be due to its association in his mind with our justification (Rom. 4:25; 10:9c–10a). If the Lord Jesus had to rely on God for his renewed life, how much more must we rely on God, rather than ourselves, for ours. |
58 | In terms of his external operations, the Lord God of the Old Testament is Chief Executive or First Commissioner, rather than “First Cause” or “Prime Mover”, as God would be portrayed in the Middle Ages under the influence of Aristotelian metaphysics (e.g., Metaphysics 1072b). The executive aspect of these external operations is seen, for example, in the Lord God’s issuing decrees or laws for the natural world (Job 28:26 MT; 38:10, 33; Ps. 148:6; Prov. 8:27–30; Jer. 5:22; 31:35–36; cf. 1 Clem. 20:1–11). Unlike commissionings that generally last for a limited time, these cosmic decrees are said to be extensive in that they last for all of time (Ps. 148:6; Prov. 8:29; Jer. 5:22b; 31:35–36; 1 Enoch [Similitudes] 69:20; 1 Clem. 20:3–4). In the terms of the present essay, the execution of these decrees is part of the extensive agency of God’s Word and Spirit. |
59 | Similar commissioning scenes are described in Job 1:6–12; 2:1–6. In other Old Testament texts, God is said to send out his Word (Ps. 147:15, 18; Isa. 55:11; 147:15) or his Holy Spirit (Wis. 9:17; cf. 9:9–10). |
60 | There are a few Old Testament examples of God’s commissioning that extend to all creatures (at any given level). Isaiah 55:10–11 compares the Lord sending out his word (to redeem his people) to his sending rain to earth to bring forth vegetation from the earth. Psalm 104:27–30 blesses the Lord for sending out his spirit/breath to renew the earth and all its inhabitants—an example of agency that is spatially extensive and temporally cyclical. In general, however, such commissionings have to do with intensive divine–human relationships. |
61 | As scholars of Ancient Near Eastern cultures like Tryggve Mettinger have shown, the local temple was viewed as the primary conduit between our world and that of God (e.g., Pss. 11:4; 20:7; Isa. 66:1; Jer. 25:30; Zech. 3:7); cf. Mettinger (1982, 29–32). |
62 | The “spirit” that opened John the Apocalypticist’s mind and imagination evidently came to him from the heaven above (Rev. 4:1–2). In the pseudepigraphal Epistle of Enoch, the patriarch similarly hears a voice and has a spirit poured out on him that enables him to foretell future events (1 Enoch 91:1). |
63 | The same may be said for God’s receiving and answering of human prayers (e.g., Mark 11:22–25), and making various declarations from heaven (e.g., Mark 1:11; 9:8). As Brittany Wilson (2021) has pointed out, the Synoptic Gospels locate God (the Father) in the heavenly realm, but they do not describe God as having an anthropic form (e.g., Mark 6:41; 7:34; 14:62; 16:[19]); Wilson (2023, 144–45, 149); cf. Wilson (2021, 780, 789f., 791)) An exception may be the “face of the Father in heaven” as seen by angels in Matt. 18:10. Early theologians like Clement of Alexandria dealt with this anomaly by identifying this “face” of God with the divine Word; Clement, Instructor I.7.57; Excerpts from Theodotus 11.1–2; 12:1; cf. Bucur (2014, 70n.18; 2007, 221n). A Valentinian origin of this idea is suggested by Clement’s Excerpts and by the occurrence of the same motif in the Tripartite Tractate (Nag Hammadi Codex I,5), 65.35–66.18; 110.37–111.4, which also stresses the formlessness and invisibility of God the Father; see James M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English, 3rd edition (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Robinson (1988, 67, 90)). |
64 | Jesus is said to be commissioned by God the Father in Mark 12:6 (a parable); John 3:17, 34; 5:30, 36–37; 8:26–28; 10:36a; 12:45, 49–50; 14:24b; 17:2–4, 8; 20:21; Rom. 8:3; 1 John 4:9–10, 14; cf. Rev. 1:1. |
65 | Christ’s obedience to the Father’s instructions and commands is described in John 9:4; 10:17; 15:10b; Phil. 2:8–9. |
66 | The Holy Spirit is sent by the Father in Rom. 8:27; Luke 11:13; Acts 2:17–18; 5:32; 15:8; John 14:26a; Acts 1 Pet. 1:12; cf. Rev. 5:6. |
67 | In the New Testament, God the Father is identified with “heaven”, particularly in the Gospel of Matthew (Matt. 3:17; 5:16, 34, 45; 6:1, 9, 10; 7:11, 21; 10:32, 33; 12:40; 16:17; 18:10, 14, 19; 23:21–22). The biblical “heaven” is ontologically “higher” than the empirical world, even higher than the supracelestial waters (Ps. 29:10; Ezek. 1:22–28 using the Hebrew word qerah, meaning crystal or frozen water), but it is still part of the created order. It is everlasting, but not the eternal locus of the triune God, “Creator of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible” (Nicene Creed). In other words, the biblical “heaven” is an intermediate realm in which the Deity can manifest itself through various self-projections and agencies, and to which biblical prophets and priests had access (1 Kgs. 22:19; Jer. 23:18–22; Zech. 3:1–7); cf. Kaiser (2007, 38–45). Like the empirical realm, the heavenly one could be described as having several levels or discrete “heavens”, the highest of which was the throne or abode of the Lord God (e.g., 2 Cor. 12:2; Martyrdom of Isaiah 7–9; Irenaeus, Dem. 9; Fathers According to Rabbi Natan A 37; Babylonian Talmud Hagigah 12b–13a). From that perspective, the relationship between the empirical and spiritual levels of creation is a continuum with an interface and some overlap between the two. |
68 | For Irenaeus’s debt to Justin Martyr, see, e.g., AH III.2.3 and cf. Justin, 1 Apol. 12. |
69 | John’s teachings had been passed down orally to Irenaeus by Polycarp and by the Elders, who were disciples of the Apostles; Irenaeus, AH III.3.4; V.5.1; 33.3; 36.1, 2, and his Epistle to Florinus: On Unique Sovereignty (apud Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History V.20.4–8). On his receiving and preserving the tenets of the faith handed down by his other predecessors, see AH I.10.1; III.4.1–2, 3.3; 24.1. |
70 | Matthew Steenberg has carefully noted the lack of tidy conceptual consistency in Irenaeus’s writing; Steenberg (2008, 63, 70, 106), passim. As a result of the variation in Irenaeus’s verbal associations, no scholarly attempt to organize them will do justice to every statement he made. As noted in the Introduction to this essay, the vantage point adopted here is one option based on the ideals that motivate scientific endeavor. |
71 | The recipient to whom Irenaeus addressed his treatise Against Heresies had requested him to provide detailed information about the heresies described (I.pref.2; III.pref.1; cf. IV.pref.1; V.pref.1). |
72 | Against Heresies was written in Greek in the late 170s and early 180s. The only complete extant version is the Latin translation, Adversus Haereses, which is thought to date from the third or fourth century. Comparison with the Greek fragments that survive indicate that this translation was fair. The best critical edition is found in Rousseau et al. (1965). |
73 | There was no such thing as “Gnosticism” as a unified group or single ideology. Of the many different varieties, Irenaeus concentrated on several versions classified as “Valentinian”. |
74 | Irenaeus never spoke of a “Trinity” consisting of distinct hypostases or personae (usually translated as “persons” in English); cf., Lashier (2014, 11, 54n.1, 209). Those terms would be adapted for theological discourse early in the following century by Origen and Tertullian, respectively, as a way of combating a very different kind of heresy, that of modalism; cf. Kaiser (2001, 75–77). |
75 | In keeping with the salutations and confessional formulas of the New Testament world, Irenaeus used the divine titles “God” and “Lord” for the Father and Jesus Christ, respectively, whenever the two were mentioned together; cf. Kaiser (2001, 41, 53). |
76 | The association of the Spirit with divine Wisdom was already present in Wis. 1:6; 7:22, 27; 9:17; 1 Cor. 2:13. Theophilus of Antioch had assumed a Spirit–Wisdom identification; e.g., Autol. I.7; II.15, 18 (late 170s?). Ireneus may have learned this association from Theophilus, as argued by Lashier (2014, 166, 179, 182). On the other hand, such sapiential traditions were still shared between Jews and Christians in the second century; so, Irenaeus could just as well have inherited it from the same oral tradition that Theophilus did; cf. Briggman (2012, 126–28). |
77 | Theophilus had also written about God creating the first man, Adam, using his Word and Wisdom (Spirit) as his two hands; Autol. II.18 (citing Gen. 1:26; 2:7). He used this metaphor in describing the “spoken Word” (Logos prophorikos) that is active in creation, as distinct from the “immanent Word” (Logos endiathetos), as it eternally existed like a thought in the mind of the Godhead. Neither here nor in the parallel text in Autol. I.17, however, did Theophilus clearly differentiate the roles of the Word and Spirit the way Irenaeus did (see below). |
78 | The English translation of Roberts and Donaldson (1965) (hereafter ANF), 1:469a. For the Latin text, see SC 100/2:450. |
79 | As a result of his concern to protect God the Father from gnostic ridicule, Irenaeus tended to attribute all such agency in the empirical world to the Word and Spirit. Even in his few citations of some of the New Testament texts that attribute the resurrection of Jesus to God the Father (see the listing above), Irenaeus included the reference to God (the Father) only once (AH III.18.2, citing the confessional formula in Rom. 10:9). |
80 | See AH III.24.2, where Irenaeus differentiates the finite manifestations and agencies of God, “within the reach of human knowledge”, from his “substance” (substantia). The Greek term most often used for these agencies is oikomomia (“economy”), which is usually translated in Latin as disposition (“dispensation”, e.g., AH IV.pref.4). |
81 | The first two parts of Gen. 2:7 follow the same sequence of words in both Hebrew and Greek: action (formed/breathed); object (man/his nostrils); source (clay of earth/breath of life). The parallelism suggests that the two events are coordinated, even simultaneous, rather than separate stages. |
82 | The idea of the Lord “containing all things” was based on is the divine function of setting boundaries to the different parts of creation and thereby limiting chaos and maintaining a degree of order; e.g., Job. 38:4–12 (“shut the sea with doors”, “prescribed bounds”, knows its place”); Ps. 104:8–9 (“set a boundary”); 148:6–8 (“fixed their bounds”, “fulfilling his command”); Prov. 8:27–29 (“drew a circle”, “assigned its limit”); Wis. 11:20 (“arranged all things by measure and number and weight”); Sir. 16:26–28 (“determined their boundaries”, “never disobey his word”); 43:6–10 (“governing the times”, “stand in their appointed places”); Prayer of Manasseh 3 (“shackled the sea …confined the deep”); Mark 4:39 (Jesus restrains wind and waves); Epistle to Diognetus 7:2 (“enclosed the sea”, “the measure of the courses of the day”). |
83 | The idea that God needed no external help because he used the Word and Spirit as his very own hands is also found in one of Irenaeus’s versions of the rule of faith (AH I.22.1). The idea may have come from Theophilus, Autol. II.18, as argued in detail by Briggman (2012, 107–19). However, it may also have come from a common oral tradition. In contrast, some early Jewish sources held that God was conversing with his angels (e.g., Philo, Creation 75; idem, Confusion 179; Genesis Rabbah 8:4). |
84 | Irenaeus also described the Word and Spirit as the “hands of God” in AH IV.pref.4; 7.4 (Armenian text); V.1.3, 5.1, 6.1, 28.4; Dem. 11. The image of God using his “hands” to create was common in Judaism. According to Gen. 2:6–7, God formed the first human body from the dust of earth (often assumed to be moistened clay that could be molded). Job 10:8–9 adds that God’s hands had made and fashioned the body of Job (Vulgate, manus tuae fecerunt me et plasmaverunt me). Psalm 119:73a (118:73 LXX) states that God’s hands had made and fashioned the psalmist (Vulgate, manus tuae fecerunt me et formaverunt me). Later Rabbinic texts explicitly cited this verse to show that God formed Adam with his two hands (e.g., Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan 1 ad finem). Philo understood Gen. 2:7 to say that, when the first man was fashioned (diaplasas), he was made by divine hands (chersi theiais genomenos) and instructed by Wisdom herself. According to 2 Esdras (4 Ezra) 8:7b, all of God’s people are the work of his hands. |
85 | As noted above, this exclusion of angels from the work of creating humanity contradicts the major Hellenistic Jewish theologian of the previous century, Philo of Alexandria, who held that the blame for the misdeeds of humans should not be assigned to God himself (Creation 75; Confusion 179). |
86 | Irenaeus’s idea of a conversation of within the Godhead in Gen. 1:26 also occurs in AH IV.pref.4; V.1.3; 15.4; Dem. 55; cf. Barnabas 5:5; 6:12; Justin, Dial. 62; Theophilus, Autol. II.18. Irenaeus’s idea differs from modern-day social models of the Trinity in that it was a simple imperative from the Father, not a reciprocal, social conversation. As noted above, Irenaeus stressed the unity of the Godhead and did not differentiate Word and Spirit as hypostases or persons. |
87 | Irenaeus identified the “God” (Greek Theos) of Gen. 1 as the Father in AH IV.20.1; V.1.3, 6.1; Dem. 97. |
88 | Irenaeus’s stress on the oneness of the Godhead and the coordination of God’s Word and his Spirit may also have been intended to avoid the idea of multiple divine powers in heaven. The latter idea was being challenged as heresy by rabbinic Sages by the third century CE, as highlighted for modern scholarship by Segal (1977), and recently reframed by Grossberg (2022, esp. 419–22, 430–31, and bibliography on pp. 432–36). |
89 | Irenaeus seems to have understood the manner of formation and animation of Adam in Gen. 2:7 as extending to all human beings (cf. Gen. 1:26–27; Wis. 2:23). In AH V.1.3, he described “the beginning of our formation [ab initio plasmationis nostrae] in Adam [Gen. 2:7a]” (ANF 1:527b, discussed below). In AH V.5.1, we are told that Enoch and Elijah were translated to heaven by the very same hands with which they were formed in the beginning (di’ ōn cheirōn eplasthēsan tēn archēn; Greek fragment): “For in Adam the hands of God had become accustomed to set in order, to rule, and to sustain his own workmanship and to bring it and place it where they pleased” (SC 153:62–64; ANF 1:530–31). Irenaeus further argued that “throughout all time, man being molded at the beginning by the hands of God …is made after the image and likeness of God” (AH V.28.4, ANF 1:557b); cf. Briggman (2012, 124–25) with notes 67, 69 on the creation and vivification of human beings. |
90 | Irenaeus held that God’s Word established the boundaries and laws that govern the cosmos, and assigned a particular function to every single creature, including the angels: e.g., Dem. 10: “He [God] has established by the Word the whole world, and the angels too are included in that world. And to the whole world he [the Word] has given laws, that each one keep to its place and not overstep the boundary laid down by God, each accomplishing the work marked out for it”; Smith (1952, 51, adapted); cf. Behr (1997, hereafter SVSP trans.), 46. For the background of this idea, see Job 38:5–11; Sir. 16:26; 1 Enoch 2:1–2 (Book of Watchers); 41:5 (Similitudes). |
91 | The meaning of the Wisdom/Spirit’s “adorning all things” is partially clarified in AH II.30.9, where Irenaeus states that God “founded and made all things (condens et faciens omnia), visible and invisible”, by his Word and fitted and arranged all things (omnia aptavit et disposuit) by his Wisdom” (SC 294:318–20; ANF 1:406a; cf. Dem. 5). Another such passage is AH III.24.2, where Irenaeus cites Gen. 2:7 and then describes God as establishing (confirmans) all things by his Word and binding them all together (compingens omnia) by his Wisdom (ANF 1:459a). Noting the variety of verbs that were used to describe the creative agency of God’s Wisdom, Anthony Briggman concluded that Irenaeus’s intent was not to define the agency of God’s Wisdom so much as to demonstrate the purposefulness and coherence of creation itself (“the wise activity of God”); Briggman (2012, 136–7, 140–42). Jackson Lashier takes AH III.24.2 as the basis for his differentiating the agencies of Word and Wisdom and concludes that Wisdom’s role was one of completing or perfecting the work of the Word; Lashier (2014, 176, 179). |
92 | Irenaeus’s differentiation of the actualizing agency of the Spirit from the governing, formative agency of the Word is missed by Matthew Steenberg when he describes the role of the Son as “formative actualization” and “the means of actualization” of the Father’s creative will; Steenberg (2008, 79, 80) (but see his clear distinction of these roles in the creation of humanity, ibid., 106). |
93 | Irenaeus’s Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching was written in Greek, but the only extant version is a later, Armenian translation. In any case, Irenaeus also used Gen. 2:7 to differentiate the agencies of Word and Spirit in AH III.24.2 (forming/establishing and inbreathing/uniting); V.1.3 (fashioning and animating/endowing with reason). |
94 | Irenaeus’s mention of God’s two hands (the Word and Spirit), together with his correlation of “purest earth” with the “measured power” that is mingled with earth, indicates that the “power” in this sentence must here represent the divine “breath of life” (cited from Gen. 2:7b) that animated the earthly form. |
95 | Demonstration 11, adapted from ACW 16:54; 148n.65; cf. SVSP trans., 46–47. Other early Christian writers located the image of God (Gen. 1:26–27) in the rational human mind; e.g., Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks 10. Like Irenaeus, however, others interpreted it quite literally: the human body is isomorphic with the form of God; e.g., Pseudo-Clementine Homilies XVI.19; XVII.7 (ANF 8:316–17; 319–20). The early rabbinic Sages also viewed the anthropic form of YHWH/Adonai as the prototype for the human (male) body, e.g., Genesis Rabbah 8:8, 10; cf. Gottstein (1994, 171–95); Fossum (1996, 1:529–39). |
96 | |
97 | Like the biblical account (Gen. 2:7), Irenaeus regarded formation of the human body as unique, unlike that of the animals, due to its upright, heaven-oriented form. |
98 | |
99 | The words used here for “life” and “soul” are the same in both Greek (psychē) and Latin (anima). So, Irenaeus associated the “breath of life” with the first man’s “living soul”. |
100 | In this respect, Irenaeus’s understanding of the formation of the divine image in humanity is comparable to the ancient Near Eastern procedure for manufacturing images of the gods. As described in Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian sources, the statue of a god was sculpted—with the aid of the god himself—in his own image. Then it was animated by that god and deified by of washing the mouth of the statue with water; Jacobsen (1987, 120–28). Irenaeus seems to have been aware of this tradition, but he followed the biblical text in substituting terrestrial soil for wood and divine breath for water (which is similar to the Greek myth of the creation of humanity by the Titans, Prometheus and Epimetheus). |
101 | Irenaeus also associated the “breath of life” with God’s Spirit by parallel constructions in AH III.24.1; V.1.3. As he made clear in passages like AH II.25.3, however, the physiological breath that was infused by God’s Wisdom/Spirit is not the same as the Spirit itself. It is best described as an agency of God’s Spirit. |
102 | Life giving in the physiological sense is not the same as the physicists’ idea of breath/fire in the mathematical equations, but there is an analogy of proportionality between the two pairings (A is to B as C is to D), ancient and modern. The animation of human beings plays a role in the context of ancient physiology that is analogous to the actualizing breath/fire assumed in the context of modern mathematical physics. |
103 | Irenaeus discussed the Word’s assumption of an anthropic form in Old Testament theophanies in texts like AH IV.7.4, 10.1, 20.8; Dem. 12, 44, 45. These theophanies literally pre-figured the Incarnation; e.g., AH IV.26.1; Dem. 12; see Ochagavia (1964, 90–95); Bucur (2018, 256, 273–74). |
104 | The Latin nouns plasmatio (workmanship) and plasma (image, figure) stem from the Septuagint of Gen. 2:7a, 15a, in which the Greek verb for “form” is plassō. |
105 | Irenaeus used the words “perfect” (perfectus) and “spiritual” (spiritalis) as synonyms in the sequel to this passage (AH V.6.1; SC 153:72; ANF 1:531–2). His knowledge of Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians is evidenced by his contrasting of this perfect state with that of being carnal (carnalis) or animallike (animalis) due to lack of the gifts of God’s Spirit (1 Cor. 2:6a, 14a; 3:1). Elsewhere, Irenaeus reserved the attribute of perfection to the uncreated, unbegotten God and those humans for whom the redeeming work of God’s Word and Spirit had been effective (AH IV.38.1–3). |
106 | In AH IV.7.4, for example, the Word/Son of God appeared in humanlike form and spoke to Abraham and Moses (citing Gen. 18:1; Exod. 3:7–8); cf. Bucur (2018, 283)). The traditional idea of the Word/Lord assuming an anthropic form was not functionally at variance with Irenaeus’s idea of the Word as one of the hands of God, because the former was rooted in Old Testament theophanies (as well as in the wording of Gen. 1:26–27), while the latter was a metaphor designed to protect the unity of the Godhead. In other words, Irenaeus was anthropomorphite regarding the divine Word, but not for the Godhead as a whole. Theophilus also stressed the formless nature of God the Father and attributed the Old Testament theophanies to God’s Word, e.g., in Autol. II.22. |
107 | As Irenaeus stated in AH IV.pref.4, the man who was “formed” (formatus) and “molded” (plasmatus; cf. Gen. 2:7 LXX) by God’s hands was a “mixed organization of soul and flesh” (temperatio animae et carnis; SC 100/2:390; ANF 1:463a). |
108 | |
109 | The Latin translation of AH IV.7.4 depicts the Word/Son and Wisdom/Spirit as God’s “offspring and likeness” (sua progenies et figuratio sua), respectively (SC 100/2:462; ANF 1:470b), using the word figuratio, rather than similitudo, for the Spirit as “likeness”. The wording is ambiguous here: the Spirit might be the likeness of the Offspring/Son (figuratio sua), who is himself the image of the Father. However, the Armenian translation of the same passage describes Word and Spirit as God’s “offspring and hands”, apparently applying both terms to each of the two. It is difficult to know which of the translations best reflects the original Greek; cf. Briggman (2012, 122–23 with n.61). |
110 | |
111 | Like other early Greek theologians, Irenaeus differentiated the “likeness” of God in Gen. 1:26 from the “image” of God in Gen. 1:26; see, e.g., Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation 12 (albeit identifying both with the Word); see the summary of the issue in Smith (1952, 126n.70). |
112 | See Dem. 97, according to which the transformation of “those who are far from God” (i.e., gentiles; cf. Eph. 2:17) into the “likeness of God” was made possible by the one who had dominion over all of life; the Son of God made that transformation available to all people (reflecting John 1:4; 3:36; 5:26; 6:47; cf. Gal. 4:19, “Christ is formed in you”). The Son accomplished this by coming down to earth (citing Bar. 3:38) and “uniting the Spirit of God the Father with what God had fashioned”, viz., the human nature assumed by the Word/Son of God (ACW 16:107–8; cf. SVSP trans., 100). |
113 | The Armenian word for “to articulate” can be taken in either of two senses: (1) to link or connect (the primary sense), or (2) to utter clearly (secondary sense). The older translation by J. Armitage Robinson preferred the latter; Robinson (1920, 74). Joseph P. Smith and John Behr both prefer the former, primary sense; ACW 16:141n.37; SVSP trans., 103.n.24. |
114 | My interpretation follows the SVSP translation (p. 43) here: the Word-made-flesh “interprets the prophets”, thereby reciprocating the forward-looking annunciations of the prophets by looking back to their original message (which were, if fact, given to them by the pre-incarnate Word). The alternative translation, stating that the Word “gives their message to the prophets” (ACW 16:51) only credits the Word with the original annunciation (“their message”) itself. |
115 | While not using the language of extensive and intensive (borrowed here from physics as explained above), Irenaeus clearly made the same conceptual distinction in passages like AH IV.20.7: “For, if the manifestation of God which is made by means of creation affords life to all living in the earth, much more does that revelation of the Father which comes through the Word give life to those who see God” (SC 100:648; ANF 1:490a, italics added for emphasis). |
116 | Irenaeus attributed the governing and arrangement of all things to both the Word and Spirit in AH I.22.1, but his focus in that section, as here in AH V.18.3, was clearly on the agency of the Word, as his citation of John 1:3 indicates. |
117 | The Latin invisibiliter is sometimes emended to visibiliter, based on the assumption that Irenaeus was thinking of the Word’s “coming to his own” in the visible, tangible body of Jesus (as in Dem. 34, for example). But Irenaeus was probably thinking of the Word “coming” to the prophets in Old Testament theophanies, which are apparent to the eyes of the mind (as opened by the Spirit), but not to the eyes of flesh; cf. AH V.16.2; Eph. 4:8–10; Rev. 4:1–3; Philo, Special Laws I.46; Martyrdom of Isaiah 6:10–15; 10:17–31. On the “non-physical visibility” of Old Testament theophanies in a multi-storied spiritual universe, see Bogdan Bucur (2018, 275–77). |
118 | See Dem. 34: “the Word of God Almighty, who in the invisible form pervades us universally in the whole world and encompasses both its length and breadth and height and depth” (ACW 16:69–70, cited more fully below). |
119 | This paradox of the Deity containing and pervading was a commonplace in early Jewish and Christian literature: e.g., Philo, Posterity 14; Confusion 136; Migration 192–93; Preaching of Peter, frag. 2a; Hermas, Mandate 1. Irenaeus also stated the paradox in AH I.15.5; II.1.2, 30.9; IV.3.1; 20.2 (where Hermas is quoted as Scripture). |
120 | Compare AH V.16.2: “When, however, the Word of God became flesh [John 1: 14a], he confirmed both of these [image and likeness, Gen. 1:26], for he showed forth the [human] image truly [tēn eikona edeixen alēthōs], since he became himself what was his image [a human being], and he re-established the similitude after a sure manner by assimilating man to the invisible Father through means of the visible Word [assimilating man to himself]” (ANF 1:544ab; Greek text in SC 153:216). In other words, the Word made flesh was the “image of God” in a double sense: as the divine Image of the invisible God (cf. Col. 1:15), according to which humans are formed (Gen. 1:26–27), and as a human being perfectly formed in that image. |
121 | In Irenaeus’s Christology, the paradoxical combination of the divine Form and the formed human being in one and the same person, Jesus Christ, may be seen as an early version of the Chalcedonian combination of the divine and human natures in one hypostasis. |
122 | As Irenaeus stated in AH V.23.2, the Lord was “summing up in himself the whole of human existence [recapitulans universum hominem in se] from the beginning [of its life] to the end [in death]”; SC 153:290–92; ANF 1:551b. For a summary of the idea of recapitulation in Irenaeus, see Smith, 30. |
123 | The association of the power of God with the Spirit has precedent in Luke 1:17a; 4:14a, 49; 5:17b; 24:49; Acts 1:8; 10:38. |
124 | The association of reason with God-given breath goes back to Philo of Alexandria, e.g., Creation 139; Planting 18–19. |
125 | Irenaeus stressed the role of the Word made flesh, conceived/animated by the Spirit, as the formative model for rendering humans “living and perfected”. According to Dem. 9, the seven charismata of the Spirit (Isa. 11:2 LXX) were the source of the wisdom and counsel of the Word made flesh (ACW 16:53; cf. SVSP trans., 45); cf., Luke 4:14, 18–19; John 16:12–15. |
126 | For a similar statement, see Dem. 97, where the Son of God bestowed new life on “what God had fashioned” (Gen. 2:7a) by assuming it and uniting it with the Spirit, thereby restoring the likeness of God in humanity that the Spirit had bestowed in the beginning (Gen. 1:26a). |
127 | Compare AH III.21.10, where Irenaeus drew a parallel between the Word’s forming the body of Adam from virgin earth and the formation of the Word as a human body in the womb of the Virgin Mary. |
128 | Like several other early Latin texts, AH V.1.3 read John 1:13 as referring to Jesus himself (cf. AH III.16.2; 19.2). |
129 | In AH IV.38.3, Irenaeus stated that man is “made according to the image and likeness of the uncreated God [tou agenētou theou], of the Father who plans and commands, of the Son who assists and accomplishes, and of the Spirit who nourished and completes, but with the man … ascending toward the perfect, becoming near to the uncreated One”; Greek fragment from Sacra Parallella, attributed to John of Damascus (SC 100/2:294, 296); ET by Lashier (2014, 210 with n.67) (cf. ANF 1:521–2). Lashier assumes that Irenaeus redefined “God” here to include all three members of the divine triad. In the immediate context, however, Irenaeus described God as “unbegotten” (agennētō hyparchonti) as well as “uncreated” (AH IV.38.1; ANF 1:521a); the terms “God” and “Father” may be understood in apposition to each other. In the previous section of his work, moreover, Irenaeus stated that the Church was fashioned “after the image of his Son” (IV.37.7; ANF 1:521a). I conclude that the “image and likeness” of God in IV.38.3 are attributed to the agencies of God’s Son and Spirit, respectively, here as elsewhere in Irenaeus’s writings. |
130 | The Latin grammar of this part of AH III.24.1 is difficult. Dominic Unger understands the “gift” here to be the faith of the Church; Unger (2012, 110). In AH III.17.2 (ad finem; SC 211:334; ANF 1:445a), however, Irenaeus had just described the Spirit as the “living water” and “gift from the Father” (aqua viva …quam Dominus acceptians munus a Patre) that Christ bestowed on all the people on earth (cf. John 3:34; 4:10; 15:26). In the passage from AH III.24.1 cited above, moreover, this “gift” is associated with the inbreathing of the first human (Gen. 2:7b; cf. John 20:22), the vivification of members of the Church (cf. John 3:6, 8; 6:63; Rom. 8:1), the “earnest/guarantee of incorruption” (cf. 2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5; Eph.1:14, cited in AH V.8.1), and various “means through means through which the Spirit works”, including apostles, prophets, and teachers (cf. 1 Cor. 12:4–11, 28). |
131 | In one of his versions of the rule of faith, Tertullian would refer to the Holy Spirit as sanctificator fidei (“sanctifier of the faith”, Against Praxeas 2.1 ad finem). This phrase is not found in the New Testament, so I assume that Tertullian received it from his own teachers. |
132 | The vivification of living believers is the deliverance from the “death” of a sinful life (Eph. 2:1; Col. 2:13). It might be taken as a reference to the future resurrection, but the very next words describe the “communion with Christ” that has been distributed in the Church, presumably in the celebration of the Eucharist. |
133 | Irenaeus’s “the ladder of ascent to God” is probably the God-man, Jesus himself, as described in John 1:51. Based on Dem. 45, it might also be understood as the Cross, “for by it, believers in him ascend to heaven, since his passion is our ascension on high”; cf. Eph. 2:5–6; Col. 3:1–3 (ACW 16:77; SVSP trans., 70; cf. Ignatius, Eph. 9:1). However, the one who raises us to union with Christ is the Spirit, as Irenaeus would explain in his discussion of eschatology in AH V.36.2: “they ascend by the Spirit to the Son, and by the Son to the Father” (SC 153:458–60; ANF 1:567a)—here, a tradition passed down from the Apostles by their disciples, the Elders of the Church; cf. AH IV.20.5; Dem. 5, 7. |
134 | In AH III.24.1, Irenaeus gave a short list of “apostles, prophets, teachers” and omitted the following reference to workers of miracles, healers, etc., in 1 Cor. 12:28. He had already argued (against the gnostics) that the miracles of exorcism and healing were among the many gifts that the Church had received by invoking the name of Jesus Christ in order to minister to the needs of gentiles (II.32.5); cf. Kaiser (1997, 66–67). |
135 | Irenaeus cited Ps. 33:6 (LXX 32:6) several times (AH I.22.1; III.8.3; Dem. 5). Following Theophilus (Autol. I.7), or else a common tradition, he understood the Psalm verse to assign the creation of the heavens to God’s Word and the creation of their “powers” (virtutes, i.e., their angelic hosts; cf. Dem. 10) to the Spirit (the divine “breath”). As noted earlier, his focus was clearly on the agency of the Word, as his repeated citation of John 1:3 indicates. For Irenaeus, the main function of the celestial powers in Dem. 10 was to glorify God; cf. Briggman (2010, 593–4). While assigning the structure and motion of the heavens to the Word, Irenaeus apparently reserved the inspiration of this higher, angelic function to the Spirit. |
136 | As noted above, Irenaeus held that God’s Word established the boundaries and laws that govern the cosmos and assigned a particular function to every single creature (Dem. 10). |
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Level/Stage of the Created Order | Word’s Agency | Spirit’s Agency |
---|---|---|
Empirical cosmos in general | Made all things (undifferentiated) Gave laws and set bounds Contains all things, yet embedded in all in an invisible manner Governs and arranges all things Imprints the form of a cross in the dimensions of the universe Illuminates the heavens and holds back the depths | Made all things (undifferentiated) Adorned all things Contains all things |
Vegetation | Same as for the empirical cosmos. | Fructifies and multiplies vegetation |
Creation and animation of human beings (Gen. 1:26a; 2:7a) | Prototypical image for formation of the human body (godlike in form) Carries out the Father’s plan and commandments | Animates what was formed Produces a living soul (godlike in breath) |
Humanity endowed with reason | Endows humanity with reason (in coordination with the Word) | |
Humanity formed in the divine Image and elevated to the divine likeness (Gen. 1:26a) | Prototypical image for the human body (godlike in form as above) | Perfected the first human (Adam) in the divine likeness (godlike in spirit) |
Revelation | Coming to prophets in words and theophanic forms | Inspiring chosen humans to perceive those words and forms |
Incarnation (perfect divine Image and likeness) | Was made man/flesh, visible Recapitulated the formation of Adam in Mary United the Spirit of God with humanity Hung upon the Cross that he might sum up all things in himself | Enabled Mary to produce a holy child, “Son of the Most High” Anointed the Word made flesh for service with the seven charismata of Isa. 11:2 LXX Raised the Word made flesh to glorified life |
Humanity restored in the divine likeness | Re-established the divine likeness in humanity by becoming a perfect human in the image and likeness of God Raised from the dead as the prototype for restoration of humanity in union with God the Father | Vivifies us from a fallen, sinful life Renews the divine likeness in us Elevates us to union with Christ Confirms us in our faith |
The life of the Church, present and future | Invites us to partake of his theanthropic life (esp. in the Eucharist) The ladder of our ascent to God the Father | Distributes the means of communion with Christ (esp. in the Eucharist) Works through apostles, prophets, and teachers The earnest/guarantee of our future resurrection and final union with Christ |
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Kaiser, C.B. The Agencies of God’s Word and Spirit: Modern Science as a “Sacred Reminder”. Religions 2024, 15, 367. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15030367
Kaiser CB. The Agencies of God’s Word and Spirit: Modern Science as a “Sacred Reminder”. Religions. 2024; 15(3):367. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15030367
Chicago/Turabian StyleKaiser, Christopher Barina. 2024. "The Agencies of God’s Word and Spirit: Modern Science as a “Sacred Reminder”" Religions 15, no. 3: 367. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15030367